Re: Is taxation theft?

In some ways no, since the government provides us the right atmosphere of conducting business and living in peace, Taxation is very important.

And aren't we able to provide the same without the interferences of governments? We are, and also we could do it far more efficiently if we had 100% competitive market (no subsidy, no tariffs, no import quotas, and so on). Gov is only required for the defence of national borders and enforcement of contracts between parties. Thus for these minimum level of government activity only a minimum level of taxation should exist, whatever above that level should be considered equivalent to theft.

And what would you consider a minimum level of taxation. To be frank i think we are paying so many taxes some of which ends up in the pocket of some President in Africa or Syrian rebels trying to topple a government.

I cannot give you an exact answer as it would be too much country specific, but I believe a fair amount would be the one that makes the government able to provide those minimum services I highlighted in the previous post, without falling into severe deficit in the gov budget. Also I agree with you that there is a misallocation of resources, and most of those taxes get funneled into shadow economies.